Sony coughs to faulty Vaio notebooks

Sony has admitted that faulty Nvidia graphics chips are causing havoc for some Vaio laptop owners.

The Japanese electronics giant said the problem dates back to July 2008, when Nvidia announced that some notebooks fitted with unspecified versions of its graphics processors were “failing in the field at a higher than normal rate”.

It has taken until now for Sony to determine that a “very small percentage” of Vaios fitted with the Nvidia GPUs may experience "distorted video, duplicate images or a blank screen".

The problems affect nine US Vaio models in all, Sony said, including the AR-, FZ- and LT-series machines. In the UK, coverage extends beyond those three to the C1, C2, LM and LT Vaios.

Sony promised to correct the problem for free. It will cover the cost of a parts and labour repair and, in addition to the standard limited 12-month warranty, will provide repaired machines with a three-year warranty extension for the GPU.

You’re eligible for a free GPU-related repair even if your laptop's warranty has expired.

More information about the problem – and details on how to get your machine repaired – are available online from Sony US. The UK pages can be found here, logging in and doing a search for 'nvidia'. ®